Black Falcon's Lady (Celtic Rogues Book 1) (11 page)

In spite of herself, Maryssa kept watching Christabel's animated features, waiting for some subtle sign of the disdain she had experienced from the bevies of haut ton belles she had met in her months with Lady Dallywoulde, but there was an almost pugnacious acceptance in the face shadowed beneath Christabel's bobbing hat brim, as though she dared the wind itself to cut through the protective shield she was weaving about Maryssa.

Even the landscape that had once terrified Maryssa now held fascination for her, its jagged rocks and untamed hills a dangerous, beckoning beauty—as dangerous and beckoning as the man who had torn her from its deadly grasp only two days before. Tade. Her hand tightened in the folds of her gown, embarrassment firing her cheeks as she felt her lips tingle in remembrance of his kiss.

"And just what or whom are you thinking of, Maryssa Wylder?" A sprig of leaves plucked from a low-hanging branch plopped into her lap, and Maryssa glanced up to where Reeve sat perched on the cart seat. His eyes twinkled, his imp's face more boyish than ever as he thrust his chest out with an air of wounded dignity that sent Christabel into a fresh spate of giggles. "Ever since we passed that bend in the road, you have been staring into the wilds as though you expect Brian Boru himself to dash out on a destrier and carry you away," Reeve complained. "And here I have been trying to instruct you in the finer points of hurling.”

"No wonder Maryssa has been staring off into the woods! Heaven knows I would sooner watch a spider's web catch dust than listen—"

"To the greatest hurler ever born recount his feats of daring?" Looping the reins around the whip socket, Reeve scooped up the heavy curved stick he had nestled so carefully beside him and brandished the hurley as though threatening an imaginary foe. Maryssa braced her feet against the floorboards, her fingers clenching on the cart's black-painted rim as the bay mare missed a step, ears flattening back in the age-old sign of equine displeasure. But instead of bolting pell-mell into the thinning woods, the beast merely shook her trappings, trotting on as though well accustomed to her master's antics.

Maryssa pulled her eyes away just in time to see Christabel wrinkle the end of her pert nose. "The greatest hurler ever born, is it?" she teased. "I shall be sure to insist that your opponents treat you with more respect from now on. I am certain that last week when you were sprawled on the ground—"

"That great clumsy oaf! Ran right over me. But this time the blackguard will regret his carelessness!"

Reeve parried with the hurling stick, wielding it with all the dash of a cavalier facing off in a duel. He swept Maryssa a deep bow, arching one brow in roguish expectation.

She smiled. "I must confess, I almost feel sorry for whomever you intend to-to hurl with that thing."

Christabel dissolved into fits of merriment. Reeve, scarcely able to speak through his laughter, scrubbed tears from his eyes with the edging of lace at his cuff. "Oh, Maryssa," he gasped. "You are a joy. The wretch I intend to 'hurl' is a black-hearted scoundrel I've been plagued with since we were scarce breeched. But after today"—Reeve smacked one palm with the seasoned curve of ash-wood—"I vow the rapscallion will never take to the field again."

Christabel heaved a teasing sigh. “It will be a pity, Reeve, when your 'scoundrel' falls. Once you trounce him, you’ll never find another full-grown man with the relish the two of you share for attempting to kill each other over a stupid ball." Christabel made a face.

"Stupid ball!” Reeve's gasp of outrage was cut short as, of her own accord, the mare turned down what looked to be merely wheel tracks branching off the road. The cart bounced across a huge rut, Reeve tumbling backward over the cart seat into a heap of flailing arms and legs.

Maryssa gritted her teeth, glancing yet again to the driverless horse, but Christabel, patently unconcerned, was already leaping to her feet in a swirl of pink satin. "Help me, Maryssa," she said, the lace at her breast fairly dancing with breathless laughter. "I shall never be able to haul this great hulk up alone, though it would serve the braggart right if the whole of Donegal saw him thus."

"Christabel, it is your fault I'm jammed in here in the first place," Reeve warned, his voice muffled in the frills of his shirt. "Maligning my hurling till honor demanded . . ." He gave a snort of indignation. "Help me at once, both of you, or I'll—“

Maryssa stumbled up, self-conciously taking hold of Reeve's wrist.

"Pull!" At Christabel's command, Maryssa tugged, but the second they tried to yank Reeve upward, he bounded to his feet with the agility of a frolicsome cat and caught both women in an exuberant hug. Maryssa tried to keep her balance, but the cart lurched abruptly to a halt and Reeve's momentum tumbled all three down into the cushions. Maryssa caught a blur of nearby faces silhouetted against a distant backdrop of trees, then yards of billowing pink fabric descended over her, blotting out the sky.

She struggled to push her way through them, but her over-skirt seemed hopelessly snarled in Christabel's hoops which were snagged on Reeve's waistcoat buttons. Maryssa's cheeks fired as she felt a buckram lath of her own hoop petticoat bob against her shoulder, the playful autumn breezes darting beneath its icing of morning gown to nip at the thin undergarments ruffled about her legs.

With stunned horror, she heard teasing voices calling out greetings to Christabel and Reeve from the cart's rim, inches from where they all lay sprawled. Maryssa groped vainly for the hem of her petticoat, the sounds of a brief scuffle followed by a yelp of indignation drifting through the layers of cloth. Then, suddenly, large warm hands clasped her waist, plucking her from the tangle as easily as if she were a spring flower. In one fluid motion her rescuer whisked her over the black-painted cart edge, turning her to face him as he lowered her to the ground.

She hardly dared raise her eyes from the wedge of bronzed chest framed in sharp contrast by the snowy lace that tumbled midway to the waistband of his breeches. But the well-muscled plane was so familiar, the touch of the hands still lingering upon her waist so sweet.

"Plague take you, man!" a gravelly voice from among the crowd pressing toward them complained. "You have had your arm about every pretty maiden from here to Lough Swilly. The least you could do is allow me to help this one from the cart."

"I would not dream of surrendering such a pleasure." The rich, silky tones drew Maryssa's eyes to meet Tade Kilcannon's intense green gaze. His eyes brushed downward to her lips, his hands, now hidden beneath the shielding of her cloak, drifted upward a whisper, the sides of his thumbs just skimming the undercurve of her breasts.

"Tade.” Maryssa breathed his name in a choked gasp, her gaze locking on the lean planes of his face. With a laugh Christabel leaped to the ground, Reeve's boot heels slamming into the turf beside her.

"I assume tedious introductions would be a waste of breath, Mr. Kilcannon?" Christabel's giggle tinkled on the breeze.

Maryssa saw a hint of red brush Tade's cheekbones. He opened his mouth as if to speak, but the delicate face brimming with merry insolence had already vanished in a whirl of powdered curls as Christabel whisked Reeve toward the clearing in a whirlwind of laughter. As if drawn by the ring of gaiety surrounding her, the crowd melted toward the field as well, each small group turning once again to their own jests, predictions, and wagers on the outcome of the day's hurling.

Maryssa stared after Christabel, unable to fathom either this woman who danced through life as though gifted with fairy slippers or the man, Tade, who remained at Maryssa's own side.

Daring a glance up at him, she found him searching her face with an intensity that made her palms grow damp. She swallowed, her voice quavering in her need to fill the weighty silence. "I wanted to thank you for returning my clothes last night. I—" She flushed scarlet as a bewhiskered old woman waddling nearby chortled, her faded brown eyes sparkling with humor within puffy folds of skin. "I mean from when I fell in the lake," Maryssa blustered.

“It was my pleasure." The words seemed to lodge low in his throat. "I waited outside on the ledge to make certain you were safe," he said quietly, his fingertip tracing the fading bruise along her jaw. "You have been, I trust. Safe, I mean."

Maryssa's fingers drifted in a self-conscious path to her cheek. "Yes, I've been quite safe. And how have you fared since . . ." She winced at how foolish she sounded, her cheeks staining berry red as her eyes locked on Tade's mouth.

The image of her wantonness as those warm lips had moved upon her flesh made Maryssa long to pull the ruched edge of her hood over her curls, to secret away both the shame and the longing that she knew must be evident in her face.

"Maura." The name fell like a caress from his lips. “It was all I could do not to bolt back through your window after your father had gone. I wanted to." Green, green eyes trailed past her mouth, breasts, and the curve of her waist. She saw him strain toward her, lips parted, the sinews of his throat standing out in sharp relief against the satiny bronze of his skin. But the sound of muffled tittering nearby made him turn and fix an exasperated glare upon the bevy of lissome peasant girls fluttering past them.

The prettiest among them flounced her skirts above trim ankles, flashing him a blinding smile. "You’d best be getting your mind on the game, Tade, lest they make a start with out you,” the girl called out.

"They'd hardly start without the greatest hurler since Finn McCool," Tade returned, tapping his chest with his fist with jocular arrogance. "And put your skirts down, Aileen Nolan. You've enough mud on your legs to fill MacConoughy Cave."

The girl yanked her skirts down, her face crumpling with the pettishness of a child caught playing in her mother's finest slippers. "Mayhap I'll be giving the mud to Sheena O'Toole," Aileen groused, her black eyes snapping as they flicked to Maryssa. "When she sees what you’re about again she'll probably fix to bury you in it."

"And if your ma knew you were mincing around with your skirts past your knees she'd lock you in the loft until you're twenty," Tade flung back. The laughter of the other girls as they skittered on toward the clearing drowned out Aileen's reply, but the name the girl had flung out echoed in Maryssa's mind, its implications reverberating through her like the tones of discordant chime.

From the moment Tade had plucked her from the cart, the eyes of every person about them had been filled either with arch speculation or with a sort of earthy indulgence, as though this same drama had been played out for their amusement time and time again.

Maryssa's whole body seemed ablaze with humiliation as her gaze locked on the ground, the delicate skin he had kissed beneath the lawn of her night rail burning as though he had seared it with a brand.

A man like Tade had no doubt had more than his share of amorous adventures. And it was patent to Maryssa that she had been added to his collection. It was as if Tade had cried his possession to everyone in the clearing, as though he wanted them all to know what he had done to her... what she had allowed him to do. And they accepted it as lightly as though she were a wench at one of the bawdy houses she had passed during her stay in London. Yet had she not acted the harlot? Drawing his lips to her breast?

"Maura?" At the sound of Tade's voice she forced an overbright smile, dragging the tattered remnants of her pride about her battered spirit. She saw Tade's eyes narrow in confusion; then a smile tipped the corner of his lips. His arm slipped through hers with a tenderness that spoke more of cherished treasure than wanton plaything. "Come on," he said with a heart-stopping grin. "There is someone here who I wager will want to see you."

"See me?" Maryssa stammered.

"Aye. To thank you in person for saving her cursed fool neck the night Rath's troopers came."

"Deirdre?"

He didn't answer, merely drew her along beside him, as he called out greetings to the people they passed, pausing in his long-gaited stride to tug little girls' plaits, to tweak the nose of a lad of five playing at hurling with the crooked branch of an oak. "Ye goin' t' grind that bloody Sassenach into the dirt t'day, Tade?" the waif piped up eagerly.

"Aye, Owen. We'll teach Marlow to take the field against the Irish, eh?"

The child crowed with a glee unsullied by resentment or hate, despite the label of Sassenach he had placed upon Reeve. Maryssa gazed at Tade in a kind of dread-filled curiosity as she was struck by the child's tone—the innate loathing for the Irish people's oppressors had been oddly absent, replaced, instead by a kind of amused indulgence that surprised her.

"You and Reeve," Maryssa began, attempting to form her confused thoughts into words. "I mean, Reeve's English, but—"

"English?" Tade grinned. "Don't let anyone else hear you say that! They'll call me out for impeaching the blackguard's good name. His great grandda might have marched with Cromwell's army, but in spite of Owen's little gibe, the mountain folk consider Reeve, Christa, and all who live in Marlow Hall almost as Irish as themselves. Since the day the laws were passed forbidding Catholics to own land, the Marlows have held the estates of a dozen Catholics in trust for men who were once nobles in their own land. Old Dalton Marlow never filched so much as a farthing from a one of them, even when his own prospects soured. And Reeve, he's done as much for the people of these glens as any man could have. If my own da had given his holdings into their hands . . ."

Maryssa saw Tade's mouth twist in bitterness for an instant, and then all shadow vanished in a wicked grin. "Of course, even if Reeve Marlow were a candidate for sainthood—which I, as his closest and most abused friend, can assure you he is not—it would fail to save him from being— how did Owen put it?—'ground into the dirt' this day."

Tade wriggled his brows with such obvious relish that Maryssa bit her lip, trying to stem the tide of merriment suddenly threatening to burst forth as they neared the gray bulk of a boulder imbedded in the rim of the clearing. But at that moment Tide's own resonant laughter rang out. His arm swept around her waist, pulling her as tight against his side as yards of petticoats would allow. She leaned against him, reveling in the feel of his warm, hard chest shaking with mirth, his unabashed joy in life releasing something deep inside her.